The First Conference on World Mission and Evangelism this century has been set to commence on 10 May 2005. The event will take place in Athens, Greece and will be opened by a large wooden cross from Jerusalem arriving by boat at the beach of the Agios Andreas recreational centre.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) report that up to 500 conference participants and over 100 local representatives, guests and stewards will gather on the beach to receive the cross and to pray together.

The cross will measure 4m in height and be made of Olive wood by a Jerusalem craftsman, and will be taken from the Middle East to Athens as a symbol of reconciliation and healing.

The event will be convened by the WCC and will take place under the theme, "Come, Holy Spirit, Heal and Reconcile". In addition a sub-theme has been given, "Called in Christ to be reconciling and Healing Communities."

The WCC have said that the event will be a great opportunity for Christians from all continents to exchange their experiences and to unite in the direction of mission. The time together will be used preciously to overlook the future of Christian witness.

A UK Baptist pastor Rev Ruth Bottoms will moderate the conference and she said, "In our globalised and fragmented world, filled with much division and conflict, the gospel message of healing and reconciliation is vital."

Daily plenary sessions will be held to focus all those gathered towards the central elements of the event – reconciliation, healing, the Holy Spirit and the Christian community.

In addition the conference will coincide with the mid-point of the WCC’s "Decade to Overcome Violence" which will run from 2001 till 2010. Hence, one of the plenary sessions will be dedicated to the relationship that mission must have with the overcoming of violence.

The plenary sessions will this year be broadcast live on the internet for the first time ever – and on top of these there will be approximately 70 workshops that will give participants the opportunity o discuss a wide variety of issues.

Before the conference, the youth delegates and other young people as stewards, will take part in a five-day youth event. Youth delegates make up just under 10% of the total delegates that are expected to attend the event, and they will take part in a series of visits to projects that are being carried out by local churches.

This year’s Conference on World Mission and Evangelism is expected to be the most inclusive in a long tradition of world mission conferences that have been taking place since 1910 in Edinburgh, Scotland. Nearly a quarter of the participants are from Evangelical, Pentecostal and Roman Catholic traditions, and so the conference will reach out much wider than just the church members of the WCC.

The WCC deputy general secretary, Georges Lomopoulos said about the World Mission Conference in Athens that it "may become a new turning point in the history of both the missionary and the ecumenical movements."

The 2005 Conference will be the first of this nature to take place in an Orthodox-dominated country.

Originally the Church of Greece head, Archbishop Chriostodoulos, invited Athens to be the place to hold the conference. He affirmed, "(it is) an historic event both for the Orthodox participation in the ecumenical movement and for the missionary movement."

To end the five-day conference, on Sunday 15th May, the cross that will open the event will be carried and lead those gathered to the Areopagos, on Mars Hill. An open-air worship service will then be held on the very same spot that apostle Paul preached to he Athenians nearly 2,000 years ago. The service will close the conference and send the participants out into the world to fulfil the great commission given by Jesus Christ – to proclaim the good news of God’s Kingdom as a testimony to all nations.



[Source: Juan Michel, WCC]